Newt Gingrich: GOP, press failed on Affordable Care Act

Newt Gingrich says he’s “appalled” at how Republicans handled the opposition prior to the implementation of Obamacare, and suggests it is time for a GOP “breakout” plan for future elections.

“The more we dig into it, I’m sort of appalled that the Republican Party … didn’t explain more carefully the things we already know about Obamacare, when we could’ve kept the president on defense the whole fall campaign,” Gingrich said, in an interview with POLITICO.

In his new book “Breakout,” which was released Monday, Gingrich writes about the “prisoners” and “prison guards of the past” that are preventing America from advancing in fields such as education, science and government. While Gingrich writes that lawmakers of both parties have been “prisoners,” he also explained how the troubled Obamacare rollout is an opportunity for the GOP, which has seen sinking poll numbers and support in the wake of the government shutdown.

“I think where ‘Breakout’ becomes important is in what’s the follow up,” Gingrich said about the GOP and its strategy on health care.

“The most important [thing] is for people who don’t want single-payer to not go back to defending the insurance companies and defending the policies that got us to Obamacare in the first place,” Gingrich said. “I think we need to move on and offer a break-out model of a personal health system.”

Gingrich added that the GOP defending insurance companies would be a “hopeless position and we would end up with a single payer system, if those were the two choices.”

Following the battle over Obamacare and the government shutdown, Gingrich acknowledged there has been a “long tension” within the GOP, but says, Republicans “have to learn to come back together after the primaries,” predicting Republicans will do well in the upcoming midterms.

Gingrich said the Republicans should be “calm and quiet” as criticisms of Obamacare emerge, and instead return to their districts to find the “pioneers of the future” he writes about.

“[Speaker John Boehner] should say to Republicans, ‘All of you go home and find pioneers of the future. And all of you figure out what kind of hearings we should be having and our goal should be to have a new break out, goal-oriented agenda next summer,” Gingrich said. “And that kind of Republican Party will be in much better shape than one which remains narrowly, passively trapped into budget fights.”